Many companies package items and/or groups of items together for a variety of purposes, such as e-commerce and mail-order companies that package items (e.g., books, CDs, apparel, food, etc.) to be shipped to fulfill orders from customers. Retailers, wholesalers, and other product distributors (which may collectively be referred to as distributors) typically maintain an inventory of various items that may be ordered by customers. This inventory may be maintained and processed at a building including a materials handling facility. Such materials handling facilities may include, but are not limited to, one or more of: warehouses, distribution centers, cross-docking facilities, order fulfillment facilities, packaging facilities, shipping facilities, or other facilities or combinations of facilities for performing one or more functions of material (inventory) handling.
Typically ordered items are packed in shipping packages (e.g., corrugated boxes) and shipped to the customer's residence or place of business. Alternatively, a customer may order an item and designate a pickup location as the delivery location. A pickup location may include a structure with a control station and storage compartments where the items that are ordered from a materials handling facility can be delivered for pickup by customers. Rather than shipping the item to a residence or place of business, the item may be shipped to the pickup location and stored in a storage compartment for retrieval by the customer. However, some customers may not live or work near a pickup location and/or various costs may be incurred for the shipment and delivery of the items to the pickup location.
While implementations are described herein by way of example, those skilled in the art will recognize that the implementations are not limited to the examples or drawings described. It should be understood that the drawings and detailed description thereof are not intended to limit implementations to the particular form disclosed but, on the contrary, the intention is to cover all modifications, equivalents and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope as defined by the appended claims. The headings used herein are for organizational purposes only and are not meant to be used to limit the scope of the description or the claims. As used throughout this application, the word “may” is used in a permissive sense (i.e., meaning having the potential to), rather than the mandatory sense (i.e., meaning must). Similarly, the words “include,” “including,” and “includes” mean “including, but not limited to.”